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I am hoping the answer to this is going to be a simple link. I suddenly have no space on my SSD C:. Where are the hidden space hogs? What can I safely delete?
I have used Glary’s space cleaner (with conservative settings) .
My Windows folder is 32Gig — if I could free up 10G, I would be happy.
Pat in CT
@sheltiemom
First run windows disk cleanup (type cleanup at start menu), click lower left “clean up system files” to elevate to administrator, and see if there is a box to delete update files which can be as large as 5gb. These are used for uninstalling updates but can be deleted if you don’t do that. If you have recently upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11, disk cleanup can delete the rollback file which can be 10-20gb.
After that, using a good tool to look for large files may help, Wiztree, Treesize, or Everything from voidtools. The first two are semi-graphical , with Everything you can search for all files and sort them by size, or tell it size:>1gb or size:>200mb to see files larger than 1gb or 2oomb.
Make a full backup image of your computer before you proceed, in case you pick the wrong thing.
In an emergency situation, disabling hibernate if it is turned on can free up however much your ram is, so typically 16gb, which will automatically remove the hiberfil.sys file – don’t delete it manually, disabling will take care of it. Your swap file may be set to twice your ram, and in a pinch can be set to 1gb, however this will mean that crash dumps from blue screens will fail, and can reduce performance and increase wear on your hard drive.
If you value your time at $20 an hour, you may quickly see that buying a 1 or 2TB SSD to replace your C drive instead of trying to free up space may be the best investment.
In some cases what you have is a partitioning problem, or an allocation problem. You may have a D drive (either another partition or another drive) with extra space but C is getting crowded. Changing partition sizes (after making a full backup) can be done with tools like Easeus partition master or Aomei partition assistant. If your 2nd physical drive has space, finding something large that can be moved from C could help, the easiest would be data files like a collection of movies. Moving programs is not impossible but can be harder.
In addition to what ableinc suggests above with the use of Windows’ built-in Disk Cleanup tool, you might also look at how much space is being taken up with system restore points that are automatically created by Windows in the background at certain times, so you don’t even know that it’s happening. These can take up several gigs of space, all the way up to all the empty space on the drive that can be found if things aren’t set correctly. Another person here on AskWoody recently got a ton of space back by reducing the space that restore points were taking up…it had been allowed to use all free space on the drive.
To see just how much space is being taken up by System Restore and the restore points it creates, you’ll have to click through some windows! Settings>System>About (at the bottom of the menu on the left side) will bring up a page that will have a heading of “Related settings” on the right side. There will be some listings in blue under it, and one will say “System protection”. Click “System protection and you’ll see a window come up with a tab at the top highlighted that says, appropriately, “System protection”. In that box you’ll see a tab that says “Configure…”. Go ahead and click it. Now you’ll see a window that will have a slider in it and a figure above that slider. That figure is the amount of disk space that the system restore points are taking up on your hard drive currently. That slider will also allow you to reduce (if you need to) the amount of space that the system restore points are allowed to take up on your hard drive.
I have a 500 gig SSD with Windows 10, and had a 500 gig HDD with Windows 7 before retiring it permanently when I moved to Windows 10. In both cases, I set the slider to no more than 2 percent of the drive capacity and have never had a problem with System Restore (even though I’ve only needed it twice, once on Windows 7 and once on Windows 10).
Fair warning, though. Reducing the amount of space that is taken up by the system restore points can reduce the number of system restore points on your system at any given time. This can be a good thing, in that it will give you more available space on your drive, but if you want (or need) a lot of restore points then you need to be careful about how much space you remove from the drive for its use.
Thank you for this advice. Very good instruction, got to where I needed, saw that it was already at 2%. 
I am currently imaging the C: drive. In Windows Explorer, it tells me that I have 3.49 GB free of 104 GB. However, I suspect C: and D: are partitions of the same drive.
When I got this machine a few years ago, I knew the C: would be tight. 16 RAM, i7 processor. So I set it up with my work on the D: drive along with almost all of my programs. I have 3 external HD attached for storage of photos, backups, videos, etc so I just don’t have to worry about them.
But, over time, the space available on C: has been shrinking and now I can’t get more than about 3 GB available.
System and reserved at 26.2 is what I’m looking at. I’ve got to believe there are some things in that HUGE Windows folder that do not need to be there.
It’s not so much finding the large folders; I can do that. It’s knowing WHAT to look for once I have identified them and what is safe to prune away.
I disabled the hibernate file since I do not use it.
The only Windows folders 1.0 GB or more are
*servicing 1.84
*assembly 1.51
*system32 5.84
*sysWOW64 1.09
*WinSxS 9.26
Finally, I have 15 folders with long alphanumeric names, each about 20 MB, and each with DellUpdateAppMSI in them
Is there anything I can do with those folders?
Thank you!
Pat in CT
@sheltiemom
To see just how much space is being taken up by System Restore and the restore points it creates, you’ll have to click through some windows!
Quick way is open an elevated Command Prompt and run vssadmin list shadowstorage.
You can gain some GB by compacting Winsxs
Run these command as admin
dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore
Then
dism /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
Then run again :
dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore
to see the gained storage space.
So another option you have for managing disk space is Storage Sense.
Settings > System > Storage
You can set it up to run automatically, so it’s a “hands-off” tool.
BTW, you might ask a mod to delete your duplicate thread on this topic, since this one seems to have the most activity.
Thanks! I already had this set up, so I need “extra help” 
Pat in CT
@sheltiemom
I have 3.49 GB free of 104 GB. However, I suspect C: and D: are partitions of the same drive.
Send us a screenshot please.
Click Start
Type: disk manager
Select the offered app (create and format hard disk…)
Expand Disk Management to remove all the scroll bars.
Take a screen shot (snip n sketch), save as PNG and use the “Select File” button to attach it to your post.
cheers, Paul
Disk 1 is your boot / OS disk and is too small.
Buy a 250GB SSD and swap it in to replace the disk 1, then we can look at sorting out the rest.
If it all goes pear shaped, put the old disk back in.
Come back when you are up and running and we can work out moving your apps back to C.
cheers, Paul
SheltieMom,
Paul T is spot-on. I’ve done this same project many times.
Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.
I have never opened the box before. How do I know which 250 SSD to buy? How do I know what would be compatible with my motherboard?
Crucial has online tools to help you find out…
https://www.crucial.com/upgrades
Run Dell Update.
Read the “Service Tag” and enter it at the Dell Support site.
Go to “Parts & Repairs” > “Hard Drives & Storage”.
You will see what sort of drive your machine has / needs and can compare it with the Crucial info.
cheers, Paul
Mom,
Before you do your transfer of your C: drive to your new SSD (preferably using image/restore, not clone – thee the recent discussion on this topic) , you should NAME each drive (through tho Properties dialog) e.g, C: System D: Data, etc., so as not to be confused as to where you’re restoring to. See attached screenshot.
Zig
You mean I can transfer the names I have on the little piece of paper on my bulletin board ? That’s terrific news!
Pat in CT
@sheltiemom
I’ve read the whole thread and I don’t see any clear mention of the total size of your C: drive SSD regardless of the partitions, except for this comment:
Windows Explorer, it tells me that I have 3.49 GB free of 104 GB. However, I suspect C: and D: are partitions of the same drive.
If 104 GB is the correct total size from the Windows Explorer “My PC” view, then it would include all partitions. If you use Google Drive (cloud), it will usually show up as “D” drive in the “My PC” view.
Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.
That’s why I asked for a screenshot. 
cheers, Paul
Another possible space hog is the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder.
Unless you’ve run Disk Cleanup (cleanmgr.exe) with “at least” the Downloads option checked,
It’ll contain copies of all the Windows updates that have ever been installed on your PC.
Just FYI, the Windows folder on my Windows 10 Pro 22H2 (built 19045.4046) PC currently contains 115,753 Files in 86,732 Folders and uses 25.5 GB.
In that folder are only items from the past 60days. 880MB. Will keep in mind
Pat in CT
@sheltiemom
When you got the computer did you clean out the bloatware that shipped with the unit?
If not, download and install the free version of Revo Uninstaller, scan your system and see if you have any apps that you do not need or want. If so uninstall them.
Also, what brand of computer is it?
HP computers ship with HP Support Assistant. One of the Assistant’s tools is HP Performance Tune-up Check. Using the tool, you can:
Finally, as mentioned above, consider replacing your current SSD with a larger one.
Bloatware be gone when I got the computer 5 years ago and was nursing my whiplash from an i7 processor, 16 of RAM and Win 10. Bang, Zoom were those the good old days.
After those days pass, Revo is my friend. 
To be fair, so is Glary and their Clean Up Tool.
Pat in CT
@sheltiemom
To boot the Macrium USB most easily, I would disable secure boot in the bios until the image is restored and tested. https://www.tenforums.com/backup-restore/160796-macrium-rescue-usb-wont-boot.html
Info: The operating system couldn’t be loaded because the kernel is missing or contains errors.
You’ll need to get in to the Repair Environment, either using a bootable Windows 10 ISO, or a recovery drive.
From the Repair environment…
In Advanced Options, select Command Prompt.
At the X: Command prompt, enter diskpart
At the diskpart command prompt, enter list volume
Check the drive letter for the volume Windows is installed on (may or may not be C:)
At the diskpart command prompt, enter exit. This will return to the X: Command prompt.
Enter the drive letter for the Windows volume (i.e. C: or whatever diskpart says it is).
Run sfc /scannow /offbootdir=<drive letter:\> /offwindir=<drive letter:\Windows>
Example (where W: is the drive letter)…
sfc /scannow /offbootdir=W:\ /offwindir=W:\Windows
Reboot when it’s done.
I need to learn how to tweak the size to get the C: OS twice the 100GB size since that is the problem that brought me here in the first place.
Keep in mind there is a difference between partition size on a drive, and the drive itself.
The problem that brought you here is that you did not have enough space…on the drive.
Now that you do (1 Terabyte), there is really no need to double the size of the OS partition…100 Gigabytes is plenty of space (my fully-patched Win10 22H2 OS is 20 Gig).
However, if you want to go forward with that project, you will need to “extend” the partition.
A free tool I would recommend is MiniTool Partition Wizard.
https://www.partitionwizard.com/
You won’t be able to take any space from the left side of the C: OS partition, because your EFI partition lives there.
So it will have to come from the right side.
However, since we can’t see where your Reserved partition is in Disk Management, and you have multiple recovery partitions (for whatever reason) on that drive, we need to see what is where.
Post a screen shot of your disk layout using Partition Wizard…before doing anything.
Usually (but not always in the same order) this is what an EFI drive would look like…
First, D: and F: are on the same physical drive, which is Disk 0…
They are simply partitions on that drive that have a drive letter assigned.
So the questions are…
You can change drive letters in Disk Management.
So…if you wanted to keep the D: OS partition and the contents of F: on the same physical drive, you would rename D: to some other letter…and then rename F: to D:
If you don’t want to keep the D: OS partition, remove the drive letter…and then rename F: to D: You can reallocate the space, and assign a new drive letter later.
You used to have D: on disk 0 with just one partition. Where did it go? Can you get it back from backup?
The new disk has too many partitions on it. You seem to have been restoring partitions instead of disks. I would start again with a fresh restore and adjust the partition sizes as part of the restore.
First you need a bootable Macrium USB.
Boot from this, connect your backup disk and make sure you can see both the external and internal disks.
Restore D: to disk 0 first, then restore C: etc to disk 1 (with resizing of C:). Do NOT reboot between restores.
Do an image restore, not partition restore.
You need to click on “Copy selected partitions”, then highlight C: on the destination disk and click “Restored partition properties”.
cheers, Paul
It’s now F: according to her screen shot attached in #2658083, and her post about making it D:(which is already assigned)
I need all of the data on F be on a D:
She has instructions on how to remedy that.
The main decision she needs to make is whether the Data partition should be on Disk 0, or Disk 1.
Some folks like OS and data on separate physical drives.
Her “original” setup in the screen shots attached in #2646458 was D: Data was the only partition on Disk 0, and Disk1 contained EFI, OS, and several recovery partitions.
So all she really needs to do to “match” that is delete every partition on Disk 0…except F: then change the drive letter to D:
She can then extend the partition left and right to take up the whole drive…as before…if that’s what she wants it to look like.
Then, she can move on to clean up the extra recovery partitions on Disk 1…once we know where Reserved is located.
Of course…image both physical drives before doing anything.
Cheers, OldNavyGuy
It’s now F:
The data may be on F: but there are now 7 partitions instead of 1.
You should always have the data drive as just a data drive. Multiple EFI / system partitions is not a good idea in a standard Windows only system – makes it hard to be sure what Windows will boot from / recover from failure.
cheers, Paul
The data may be on F: but there are now 7 partitions instead of 1.
Already discussed…
all she really needs to do to “match” that is delete every partition on Disk 0…except F: then change the drive letter to D: She can then extend the partition left and right to take up the whole drive
MiniTool Partition Wizard was recommended.
You should always have the data drive as just a data drive.
No one said otherwise…
Can you please walk me through how to give the C: partition more space? (with Mini Tool Partition Wizard) And if there is a simple way to clean up all of the sub-partitions, I’m open to suggestion.
MTPW can help with deleting any unnecessary partitions, and then using the unallocated space to extend a partition.
Tutorials on both operations –
https://www.partitionwizard.com/help/delete-partition.html
https://www.partitionwizard.com/help/extend-partition.html
First, however, post one (or more) screen shots of MTPW showing all your disks and all partitions.
The top half of the screen would be preferred…see the example posted in #2658095
The MTPW screen shot I posted is a couple of versions old…it looks like they deprecated the menu bar.
So, in the upper right corner, next to the Minimize icon, is the “hamburger” icon (3 horizontal lines).
Click on that, and select Debug.
Then select Make Screenshot > Save Screenshot.
Note that the default location is the MTPW Program Files folder.
I would select the Desktop.
Post those results.
We have liftoff!
Now I know it is not perfect, but I am in a much better place. The only issue is that on startup, I have to choose between Win 10 and Win 10 on volume 6. The latter is the correct boot.
I cannot thank you enough for holding my hand through the Interwebs to fix this. I apologize for the delay in getting back to you but I am even more frazzled because I just found out I need an urgent hip replacement. I am having entirely too much fun for one person!
The remaining question I have (and maybe I should just be quiet now) is why do I have Disk 1 and Disk 2 when I put in one new SSD 1TB?
SheltieMom
Pat in CT
@sheltiemom
The remaining question I have (and maybe I should just be quiet now) is why do I have Disk 1 and Disk 2 when I put in one new SSD 1TB?
Disk 2 is your new SSD, since it has C: OS, and the one you replaced (because you couldn’t extend C:OS) did as well.
The partitions marked out in red can be deleted, and the unallocated space used…whenever you get around to it.
This is what you started with…
Keep in mind Disk Management labels “disk numbers” differently than MiniTool Partition Wizard.
Good luck on your surgery.
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